George (Jack) Cioffi, MD
George (Jack) Cioffi, MD is the Edward S. Harkness Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He also holds the Jean and Richard Deems Endowed Professorship and is the Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. In 2012, Dr. Cioffi was elected as the President of ColumbiaDoctors, the multi-specialty faculty practice organization of more than 1,700 clinicians from Columbia University Medical Center and is concurrently appointed Vice Dean of Clinical Affairs.
Dr. Cioffi formerly held the Richard G. Chenoweth Chair of Ophthalmology at the Devers Eye Institute and was the Chief Medical Officer & Senior Vice President at Legacy Health System in Portland, Oregon. He received his medical degree at the University of South Carolina, completed a residency in ophthalmology at the University of Maryland where he also served as Chief Resident, and a fellowship in Research & Clinical Glaucoma at Devers Eye Institute under Dr. E. Michael Van Buskirk. More recently, he completed the inaugural Harvard Business School program in Managing Healthcare Delivery.
Dr. Cioffi is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Academic Ophthalmology, the official journal of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO). As well, he is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Glaucoma, after serving for 10 years as the Editor-in-Chief, and he is the current Chair of the Basic and Clinical Science Course for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He is the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Glaucoma Research Foundation in San Francisco. He is a past President of the Oregon Academy of Ophthalmology and has served as a member of the FDA Ophthalmology/Dermatology Advisory Committee for drug approval. He also served on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Medical Excellence and was selected by the Governor John Kitzhaber to serve on the Oregon Health Policy Board’s Outcomes & Quality taskforce.
Dr. Cioffi, a physician for more than 30 years, has published over 250 articles, has enjoyed support from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health for more than 20 years. He has delivered more than a dozen named lectures and has received the Honor Award, the Senior Honor Award and the Secretariat Award from the AAO. He has mentored more than 45 clinical and post-doctoral fellows over his career. These clinicians and scientists are now at academic institutions and in practices around the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Anne L. Coleman, MD, PhD
Anne L. Coleman, MD, PhD is the Bradley R. Straatsma, MD, Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology. She is the Chair and Executive Medical Director of the UCLA Department of Ophthalmology, Director of the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute, Affiliation Chair of the Doheny Eye Institute, and Professor of Epidemiology in the UCLA Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health. For over 20 years, Dr. Coleman has been the Director of the Jules Stein Eye Institute’s Center for Community Outreach and Policy and the UCLA Mobile Eye Clinic, providing vision services to the medically underserved populations of Los Angeles County.
Dr. Coleman received her medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia, completed her residency training at the University of Illinois in Chicago, and finished her fellowship training in glaucoma at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She received her doctorate in Epidemiology from UCLA and is a graduate of the Anderson School of Management Executive Program in Management.
Dr. Coleman has been actively involved in national outreach programs in ophthalmology. She was elected to the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in 2016, was a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) Committee on Public Health Approaches to Reduce Vision and Promote Eye Health, and Chair of the National Eye Institute National Eye Health Educational Program. She has served as former president of American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), American Ophthalmological Society, Women in Ophthalmology, Los Angeles Society of Ophthalmology, and as Chair of the National Eye Institute National Eye Health Educational Program. She is a former member of the St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group Board of Trustees and the Helen Keller International Board of Trustees. Dr. Coleman has served as US Priory Hospitaller, Director and Trustee of the St. John Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group, and is a Commander of the Order of St. John.
Jacque L. Duncan, MD
Jacque L. Duncan, MD, Chair and Distinguished Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco, is also the Chair of the Foundation Fighting Blindness Scientific Advisory Board, and the co-Chair of the FFB Clinical Consortium Executive Committee. Dr. Duncan has expertise in the diagnosis and management of patients with retinal degenerations including age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, cone-rod dystrophy, and Stargardt disease. Her research focuses on identifying imaging technologies to better evaluate retinal changes in disease and in response to emerging therapies. She has worked with FFB Leadership to launch the FFB Consortium which comprises over 48 clinical centers and over 160 investigators with expertise in the care and study of patients with inherited retinal degenerations
Dr. Duncan, Chair and Distinguished Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco, is also the Chair of the Foundation Fighting Blindness Scientific Advisory Board, and the co-Chair of the FFB Clinical Consortium Executive Committee. She graduated with distinction and honors from Stanford University, then spent a year doing research at the University of Colorado while she applied to medical school. She completed medical school, internship and ophthalmology residency at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Duncan completed a medical retina fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Drs. Stuart Fine and Samuel G. Jacobson. Her fellowship training focused on patients with age-related macular degeneration and inherited retinal degenerations. She returned to join the ophthalmology faculty at UCSF in 2000, supported by a K08 award to work with her mentor, Matt LaVail, PhD, studying rodent models of inherited retinal degeneration. Dr. Duncan was appointed Interim Chair 1/1/22, and after a national search, she has served as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at UCSF since 12/1/22.
Dr. Duncan has expertise in the diagnosis and management of patients with retinal degenerations including age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, cone-rod dystrophy and Stargardt disease. Her research focuses on identifying imaging technologies to better evaluate retinal changes in disease and in response to emerging therapies. In collaboration with Austin Roorda, PhD, Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Optometry, and Joseph Carroll, PhD, Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, she has studied cone photoreceptors in the eyes of patients with many different types of inherited retinal degeneration. Dr. Duncan has received funding to support her research from the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Research to Prevent Blindness, the National Eye Institute and the US Food and Drug Administration Office of Orphan Product Development, in addition to several sponsors of clinical trials for patients with inherited retinal degenerations. She has served as chair of the FFB Scientific Advisory Board since 2015. She has worked with FFB Leadership to launch the FFB Consortium which comprises over 48 clinical centers and over 160 investigators with expertise in the care and study of patients with inherited retinal degenerations.
Julia A. Haller, MD
Julia A. Haller, MD, is Ophthalmologist-in-Chief of the Wills Eye Institute, where she holds the William Tasman, MD Endowed Chair. She serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals. She was educated at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Princeton University, and Harvard Medical School. She was an ophthalmology resident, retina fellow, and the first female chief resident at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and went on to hold both the Katharine Graham and Robert Bond Welch, MD Professorships there before assuming leadership at Wills.
Dr. Haller's honors include the Rolex Achievement Award (to a past participant in collegiate varsity lacrosse), the Crystal Apple Award of the American Society of Retina Specialists for teaching and mentorship, the Kreissig Award from EURETINA, the President's Award from Women in Ophthalmology, a Secretariat Award from the AAO, the Gertrude Pyron Award from the Retina Research Foundation and the ASRS, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the AAO.
Dr. Haller has published over 250 papers in the peer reviewed literature as well as 22 book chapters. She is past president of the American Society of Retina Specialists, Vice-President and President Elect of the Retina Society, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Macula Society and the Board of Trustees of the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology. She serves on the editorial boards of RETINA, Retinal Physician, Retina Times, Ocular Surgery News, Retina Today, Ophthalmology Times, EyeWorld, and Evidence-Based Eye Care.
Dr. Haller serves on the Board of the American Retina Foundation, the Board of the ARVO Foundation for Eye Research, and the Board of Trustees of Princeton University.
Bennie H. Jeng, MD, MS
Bennie H. Jeng, MD, MS is the Harold G. Scheie Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, and Director of the Scheie Eye Institute, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He then completed his ophthalmology residency and chief residency at the Cole Eye Institute of the Cleveland Clinic, which was followed by a fellowship in cornea and external diseases at the Francis I. Proctor Foundation/University of California San Francisco (UCSF) in 2003.
Dr. Jeng then returned back to the Cole Eye Institute to serve on faculty, during which time he was the recipient of a K-grant from the NIH and also earned his Master degree in Clinical Investigation from Case Western Reserve University. He subsequently returned to Proctor/UCSF as an Associate Professor and then Full Professor, where he served as co-director of the UCSF cornea service, Director of the Proctor/UCSF Cornea Fellowship program, and Chief of Ophthalmology at the San Francisco General Hospital, as well as being an R01-funded researcher in ocular surface diseases. In August 2013, Dr. Jeng began his tenure as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he served for nearly 9 years. He assumed his current position in July 2022.
Dr. Jeng is actively involved in the leadership of many of our ophthalmologic societies, including as Immediate President of the Cornea Society, Past-President of the Eye and Contact Lens Association (formerly CLAO), and on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Ophthalmology. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the AAO as the Secretary for Annual Meeting. He has also served recently on the Board of Directors of the Eye Bank Association of America, and he is an active member of the American Ophthalmological Society as well as the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology.
Dr. Jeng has published over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and 30 book chapters, and he has delivered over 450 invited lectures nationally and internationally. He is a past member of the editorial board of JAMA Ophthalmology and Eye, and he recently completed his term as Editor-in-Chief of Eye and Contact Lens. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Ophthalmology, a Senior editor for Cornea, and as an editorial board member of several other journals including: Ophthalmology Science, Journal of Academic Ophthalmology, and Taiwan Journal of Ophthalmology. He is also the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of Cornea Open, which launched in 2022 and is the official open access journal of the Cornea Society. He is the recipient of resident teaching awards from the Cleveland Clinic and UCSF, and he has also received the Senior Achievement award and the Secretariat award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology. In addition, Dr. Jeng is a Gold Fellow of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (FARVO).